Unit 1A Labolengua The present tense of verbs (revision)

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 A Regular verbs When you look up a verb in a dictionary you will find it in the infinitive form like this: hablar (to speak); comer (to eat); vivir (to live). Spanish infinitives are made up of a stem + an ending: habl + ar. All regular verbs in Spanish follow a pattern and fall into three groups, indicated by the last two letters of the infinitive: -ar, -er, -ir.

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 Subject pronoun (person doing the verb) Infinitive hablar – to speakcomer – to eatvivir – to live yo – Ihablocomovivo tú – you (s)hablascomesvives él – he / ella – she / usted – you (formal) hablacomevive nosotros/as – wehablamoscomemosvivimos vosotros/as – you (pl)habláiscoméisvivís ellos/ellas – they / ustedes – you (pl formal) hablancomenviven Remember: the pattern of the verb ending tells you which person is doing the verb so you don’t often need to use the personal pronoun in Spanish unless you want to emphasise who it is.

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 B Radical or stem-changing verbs These verbs follow the regular pattern for the endings but change their spelling in the stem of the verb. For example, u  ue: jugar (to play); o  ue: poder (to be able); e  ie: preferir (to prefer). You will find them in the dictionary set out like this: jugar (ue)poder (ue)preferir (ie)querer (ie) juego juegas juega jugamos jugáis juegan puedo puedes puede podemos podéis pueden prefiero prefieres prefiere preferimos preferís prefieren quiero quieres quiere queremos queréis quieren

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 C Reflexive verbs These are verbs which have se attached to the end of the verb; for example, levantarse ‘to get up’ (i.e. to get oneself up). The se part is called a reflexive pronoun. This pronoun changes to match the person doing the verb action. me levanto – I get (myself) up te levantas – you get (yourself) up se levanta – he / she gets (himself / herself) up nos levantamos – we get (ourselves) up os levantáis – you get (yourselves) up se levantan – they get (themselves) up

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 Some reflexive verbs are also radical-changing, like the verbs in B: despertarse (ie) to wake up; acostarse (ue) to go to bed; vestirse (i) to get dressed

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 D Present continuous This is used to describe what is happening at the time of speaking or writing. It is formed with the present tense of the verb estar (to be) plus the verb of action with its ending changed to -ando for -ar verbs and -iendo for -er and -ir verbs. The endings -ando and -iendo in Spanish are like the English ending -ing.

Unit 1A: Labolengua © Oxford University Press 2012 E Irregular verbs The five main irregular verbs in Spanish are: tener, hacer, ir, ser, estar. You should memorise these.